Interesting story about how electricity was introduced and changed the world.

Was not a great history of electricity. For whatever reason, Bodanis started the book with Samuel Morse's alleged theft of the telegraph from Joseph Henry, skipping over Volta, Galvani, Franklin, and various other milestones in electrical History. In general the book was rather awkwardly arranged, written in a bland manner. Though I did enjoy the re-imagining of the invention of the phone as the way to win the heart of Alexander Graham Bell's deaf lover, the book as a whole was a rather awkward history which sometimes read as sanctimonious judgment.

From a human story standpoint, this nails it. But the way the science is described left me a bit queasy. (But that’s not how I was taught it?!!)

I read this book before I saw The Prestige and I was so glad of it. There are so many subtle things in the movie that were so much more meaningful to me, especially concerning the backgrounds of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison.

It's a great read, which tells the stories of lots of people who really lived and things they really did, but it feels more like a collection of short fiction. It's a really engaging read that even people who don't normally go for nonfiction would likely enjoy, especially if the fiction you usually read is Sci-Fi.

I have mixed feelings about this book--the breezy tone struck me as condescending rather than friendly, and most of the stories Bodanis tells are familiar--Michael Faraday's struggles with class prejudice, the work of Edison, Galvani and Volta, etc. But Bodanis did teach me a few things and as I got used to his style I found it less distracting.

This is not, however, anything like a complete history of the discovery of electricity and its applications--Tesla, for example, is nowhere mentioned. And the story pretty much ends with the development of the transistor and the discovery that electric charges pass signals through our nervous systems.

I'm not sure I'd recommend this to anyone over 40...

كون كهربائي: قرأت نسخته المترجمة الصادرة عن المركز القومي للترجمة بترجمة عزت عامر.


هذا كتاب مكتوب بحب وروقان، كتبه صاحبه وليس في عقله القاريء!، نعم ... فأفضل ما يكتب هو ما يكتبه صاحبه وهو في حالة ذوبان تام مع نفسه وفي نفسه، يحاول أن يفهم ويقنع نفسه بأبسط الطرق والوسائل ويطرح على نفسه الكثير من الإشكاليات التي قد لا يطرحها القاريء أصلا!


طوال الوقت ومنذ أن كنت صغيرا لدي شغف لمعرفة آلية عمل الكهرباء ، وكل ما درسته لم يشف غليلي ولم يفهمني حتى ظننت أنني غبيا.

هذا الكتاب استطاع أن يأخذ بيدي لبداية الطريق ، أن يعلمني بأبسط الطرق آلية عمل الكهرباء، والتلغراف والتليفون والراديو والرادار والحاسوب في سرد حميمي مزج فيه الكاتب ما بين المذكرات والعلم والقصص الحربية المثيرة، والعلاقات الإنسانية الغريبة، ليخرج لنا هذا الكتاب.


منذ سنوات، وبعد تخرجي من كلية الصيدلة ، كان لدي شغف لدراسة علم وظائف الاعضاء(الفسيولوجيا) وبالفعل بدأت بشكل منفرد وذاتي الدراسة، لاكتشف أنني أدرس الكهرباء لا الفسيولوجيا، وأن جسم الانسان ما هو إلا كون كهربائي مصغر تتسارع فيه النبضات الكهربية حرفيا عبر الأعصاب، ناقلة الإشارات الكهربية العصبية من وإلى المخ، وبالرغم من أنني لم أتم دراسة علم وظائف الأعضاء كاملا، إلا أنني درست مقدمته دراسة وافية، والتي كانت مقدمة كهربائية بامتياز، وهو ما ذكرني به الفصل الأخير من هذا الكتاب.


كتاب علمي وممتع في نفس الوقت، وقلما هي الكتب التي على هذه الشاكلة.

I got about halfway through this book before I discovered that it was abridged. I found the information interesting, but I could defnintely tell information was missing. Even at the end the narrator talks about the story starting with Volta, but in this abridged version it didn't. It definitely felt as if there were other gaps in the story of electricity. Also, the author changed his approach in a few of the stories. The first two stories start out kind of mysterious, the story on Hertz is told almost entirely from his own diary and other documents. The end of the chapter on computers sounds like the conclusion to the entire book, but it's not.

Still, in spite of all its flaws, I would still recommned. In fact, I'm looking for an unabrided text to read the missing parts. I'm pretty sure they cut out entire stories, but I also suspect that there was some internal editing within the stories as there occasionally seemed to be gaps in the narrative.

I'm giving this three stars because what's there is pretty good, for what it is. But it's a grudging rating, for the book has one glaring, unforgivable fault.

The idea of this book is that it's meant to be a beginner's introduction to the underlying concepts of electricity: how it works and what's going on, as well as interesting stories surrounding the discoveries of those concepts.

And to that extent, it succeeds.

Purists will be upset by this book because it uses the device of lies to children to get a lot of the ideas across; that is, it simplifies - sometimes grossly simplifies - concepts, sometimes even mischaracterizing them, in order to be able to make the information more understandable to people entirely new to the ideas.

But this book isn't meant for purists. If you already have a reasonably good understanding of how electricity works, skip this book - it isn't for you. It's meant for people who are just beginning to get it; for them, it works.

However (and here we come to the glaring flaw I mentioned), this book contains a sin of omission: there is Not. One. Mention of Nicola Tesla. In the section on Edison, no mention of his and Tesla's very public battle over whether the electric grid should be using direct current (Edison) or alternating current (Tesla), and why Tesla won (because he was right!).

In the bit about Marconi, he ignores the fact that many of Marconi's patents - based on the work of Tesla, among others - were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1943 (6 years after Marconi's death).

Given that much of the book is interesting stories about the scientists who discovered the properties of electricity and wrote its stories, it's curious - not to mention disquieting - that the Edison/Tesla conflict, at the very least (since it deals with an aspect of the electrical system that is still very important to us today) would be ignored.

Just the right balance of facts, anecdotes and reflection. I learned a lot, even things I didn't know about the human body. These amazing electrons!

Excellent overview of all things electrical - from the telegraph to the human brain. We learn more about the inventors we thought we knew and discover the inventors who inspired them. Throughout it all, there are enough heroes and villains for several books.

Very accessible book on the history and workings of electricity.

This book was short and informative to a point until when I realized there was no mention of Tesla in a book that talks about Electricity. It was surprising because Author mentions Edison and his discoveries.

He talks about a lot of important figures from the history but fails to mention the contribution of Quantum Theory (and people associated with them) in understanding electricity. An average piece of work at best.